It’s one thing if a company earns a dominant market share in a region because consumers have voted with their wallets and decided that Company X is the best around and it’s the only one they want. It’s another when, in the case of the cable industry, that monopoly isn’t earned, but is instead the result of outdated regulations that force a certain company on consumers based on ZIP code. The introduction of higher-speed fiber-optic networks like Google Fiber and AT&T’s new experiment in Austin may shatter the concrete feet of a cable colossus like Comcast.
In a really good piece for the Washington Post, Timothy Lee demonstrates how he believes Comcast is reining in access to faster Internet download speeds in order to cash in on customers with few other options.
He points out that while Comcast has increased the speed of its most popular broadband offering, the “Performance” tier, from 3Mbps to 20Mbps over the last 10 years, the company is now able to deliver speeds of up to 105Mbps without the customer having to upgrade her in-home equipment. But in order to reach that level of speed, you would need to pay around $115 per month, more than double what most people pay for the Performance tier.
Lee explains:
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Via
Chuck Sherwood, Former Senior Associate, TeleDimensions, Inc
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